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These are all standard Indian right wing tropes which are all false. Colonialism involves looting the wealth of the colonies and shipping it overseas. The diff

• skissane 4y ago
  > These are all standard Indian right wing tropes which are all false. I'm not Indian. > Colonialism involves looting the wealth of the colonies and shipping it overseas. The word "colony" comes from Latin colonia – which is what the Romans called the settlements of retired soldiers they planted throughout their empire, to ensure conquered lands would remain under their control. The Romans were not the first to establish colonies – the Greeks, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians had all done it before, and at the other end of Eurasia, Han China was doing the same thing around the same time. So, in the original sense, a colony involves not the extraction of resources, but the insertion of a new population–what the British did in North America and Oceania, and the Spanish and Portuguese did in much of Latin America. The modern European "colonies" in Asia and Africa were different, in that they received few permanent European settlers–and hence were indeed much more extractive in focus–but extraction was hardly a new thing either. The city of Rome was fed by the extraction of Egypt's grain. Empires throughout history have been sustained through the plunder and oppressive taxation of conquered lands. > Towards the end of peak Mughal rule India was the most prosperous country in the world. Towards the end of British rule India was one of the poorest countries in the world The Mughals were the authors of their own decline. Aurangzeb plundered the empire to pay for his ruinous war against the Marathas, and the extravagant opulence of his court. He introduced discriminatory taxes against non-Muslims, which caused resentment among the Hindu majority, and sowed the seeds of later rebellions. His failure to ensure a clear successor left a legacy of civil war from which the empire never recovered. No denying that the British Raj greatly mismanaged the economy–but so did the later Mughals. How is one inherently worse than the other? And what difference did it make to millions of malnourished peasants, whether the taxes which oppressed them went to Delhi or to London?
  • random314 4y ago
    > No denying that the British Raj greatly mismanaged the economy–but so did the later Mughals. How is one inherently worse than the other? > And what difference did it make to millions of malnourished peasants, whether the taxes which oppressed them went to Delhi or to London? This is some kind of bizarre apologetics for colonialism. There is no evidence of economic mismanagement by later Mughals. You simply made up that shit. The kingdom split up and fell apart and India was dominated by the Maratha empire. Post Aurangzeb Mughals are of no real significance in Indian history or economics. I know you are just trying to move past the fact that Indias economic peak was under Aurangzeb, until the British pulverized the country. But if you are going to directly discard the actual data, what is the point of responding. In the Mughal period Indian economic output was at its peak and ordinary peasants had similar economic outlook as their western counterparts. At the end of British rule indian peasants were several orders of magnitude poorer than their western counterparts. How on earth are you equating both situations? If you are not going to leave your absurd bias at the door, what's the point in engaging? You also conveniently ignore 3000 years of rule by the Aryan derived minority upper castes on native lower castes. These apparently were glorious 2000 years for India, because the plight of the majority lower castes don't actually matter. After the Buddhist empires, it was only during the Islamic empires that the lower castes weren't ritually forced into slavery and penury by "dharma" which was enforced as law. It is no coincidence that Indias economic peaks came under Buddhist and Islamic rule. Under Upper caste rule Indians suffered a lot, however British colonialism was significantly worse. The economic data speaks for itself. As an aside, Aurangzeb was the most austere Mughal emperor- This point is not relevant to the discussion, the fact that you made up a false point clearly shows that this is a fact free Ideological polemic from you. Even when the data directly contradicts everything you claim, you will remain unruffled. > I'm not Indian. I never claimed you were. But you have all the upper caste hindu right wing tropes down pat :) congratulations. Inspite of the fact that these gave been demonstrated to be fact free over and over again.
    • selimthegrim 4y ago
      Someone send that poor fellow collected works of Irfan Habib on Mughal taxation and governance stat.